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FreedomAction.org: Senate Democrats Vote to ‘Turn Out the Lights on America”

Washington, D.C., June, 10, 2010 – The Senate today defeated by a vote of 47 to 53 the Murkowski Resolution of Disapproval that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Six Democrats and all 41 Republican Senators voted for the resolution. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) offered S. J. Res. 26 under the special procedures of the Congressional Review Act, so that the resolution needed only 51 votes for passage.

Supporters of EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions had to resort to high-pressure tactics to defeat the Murkowski Resolution. The White House issued a sternly-worded veto threat. Environmental pressure groups spent millions of dollars on advertising. Even that was not enough. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had to promise to hold a vote on a bill that would delay EPA regulations for two years in order to peel several Democratic votes away.

“During today’s debate, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, said that he was voting for the Murkowski Resolution because he didn’t want EPA turning out the lights on America. Unfortunately, 53 of his fellow Democrats disagreed with Senator Rockefeller and voted to allow EPA to proceed with their regulations to turn out the lights on America,” Myron Ebell, Director of Freedom Action.

“Every one of the 53 Democratic Senators who voted against the Murkowski Resolution has now taken full responsibility for the economic consequences of the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations,” Ebell continued. “These 53 Democratic Senators are responsible for the higher energy prices that will make American families poorer. They are responsible for every factory that won’t be built and for every job that will be lost.”

Today’s vote is not the end of efforts to stop EPA from regulating the American economy into permanent stagnation. One hundred seventy House Members have already co-sponsored identical resolutions to block EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.